Below Review – Enjoyable If Predictable Survival Thriller Series
What more could you want from a spooky season watch? A small, isolated town, a creepy mystery and something lurking beneath the water. Netflix’s new limited series Below ticks all three boxes, taking us to a remote fishing village in Newfoundland where a long-buried secret beneath the water is about to surface.
The cast is great, with Josh Hartnett once again proving what a fantastic leading man he is. I am really enjoying this Josh Hartnett revival of the last couple of years. The idyllic, isolated fishing village is also a fantastic setting for this kind of story, and the wider cast of characters really helps bring the community to life. The show also stars Mackenzie Davis, Charlie Heaton, Rohan Campbell and Willow Kean.
I really liked the themes around family, culture and community, too. There’s something about the idea of living in a small town where everyone knows everyone that really appealed to me, and Below somehow made me want that lifestyle even more. I don’t want to spoil too much because things move pretty quickly, but this is a very tight six-episode series, with each episode coming in at around 40 minutes. You can absolutely fly through it in a weekend. I binged the whole thing while watching it for this review, and I think that worked really well for the story.
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The central mystery surrounding the water is one of the show’s biggest strengths, with the revelations nicely drip-fed throughout the first three episodes. The back half of the season then begins to bring everything together, and by the final three episodes, many of the pieces have fallen satisfyingly into place. It all builds towards a pretty great cliffhanger, too, leaving things on a particularly intriguing note. The story itself is genuinely interesting and, aside from its supernatural elements, has a distinctly British TV drama feel to it. There’s a real focus on the dynamics of a tight-knit community, the secrets people keep and the personal dramas that unfold when things start to go wrong.
There are a few drawbacks, though. The accent is a little odd to begin with, but you do get used to it. Eventually, you stop noticing it altogether. My biggest issue is that there are perhaps too many ideas at play. Writer Jesse McKeown clearly wants to explore a lot of different themes and storylines within this small island community, and while some of them work really well, others happen far too quickly or simply aren’t given enough time to develop.
Despite being labelled a limited series, I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix is hoping this one does well enough to continue in some form. Overall, I really enjoyed Below. I just think there are slightly too many ideas competing for attention, and occasionally that distracted me from what is otherwise a really enjoyable mystery.
★★★
All Episodes streaming October 8th on Netlfix/ Josh Hartnett, Mackenzie Davis, Charlie Heaton, Rohan Campbell, Willow Kean/ Showrunner: Jesse McKeown/ Netflix
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